CHAPTER III
AUNT MARIA
Six months or so had gone by and summer reigned royally at Eastwich,
for thus was the parish named of which the Reverend Septimus Walrond
had spiritual charge. The heath was a blaze of gold, the cut hay smelt
sweetly in the fields, the sea sparkled like one vast sapphire, the
larks beneath the sun and the nightingales beneath the moon sang their
hearts out on Gunter's Hill, and all the land was full of life and
sound and perfume.
On one particularly beautiful evening, after partaking of a meal
called "high tea," Barbara, quite strong again now and blooming like
the wild rose upon her breast, set out alone upon a walk. Her errand
was to the cottage of that very fisherman whose child her father had
baptised on the night when her life trembled in the balance. Having
accomplished this she turned homewards, lost in reverie, events having
happened at the Rectory which gave her cause for thought. When she had
gone a little way some instinct led her to look up. About fifty yards
away a man was walking towards her to all appearance also lost in
reverie. Even at that distance and in the uncertain evening light she
knew well enough that this was Anthony. Her heart leapt at the sight
of him and her cheeks seemed to catch the hue of the wild rose on her
bosom. Then she straightened her dress a little and walked on.
In less than a minute they had met.
"I heard where you had gone and came to meet you," he said awkwardly.
"How well you are looking, Barbara, how well and----" he had meant to
add "beautiful," but his tongue stumbled at the word and what he said
was "brown."
"If I were an Indian I suppose I should thank you for the compliment,
Anthony, but as it is I don't know. But how well /you/ are looking,
how well and by comparison--fat."
Then they both laughed, and he explained at length how he had been
able to get home two days earlier than he expected; also that he had
taken his degree with even higher honours than he hoped.
"I am so glad," she said earnestly.
"And so am I; I mean glad that you are glad. You see, if it hadn't
been for you I should never have done so well. But because I thought
you would be glad, I worked like anything."
"You should have thought of what your father would feel, not of--of--
well, it has all ended as it should, so we needn't argue. How is your
brother George?" she went on, cutting short the answer that was rising
to his lips. "I suppose I should call him Captain Arnott now, for I
hear he has been promoted. We haven't seen him since he came home last
week, from some hospital in the South of England, they say."
Anthony's face grew serious.
"I don't know; I don't quite like the look of him, and he coughs such
a lot. It seems as though he could not shake off that chill he got in
the trenches. That's why he hasn't been to call at the Rectory."
"I hope this beautiful weather will cure him," Barbara replied rather
doubtfully, for she had heard a bad report of George Arnott's health.
Then to change the subject she added, "Do you know, we had a visitor
yesterday, Aunt Maria in the flesh, in a great deal of flesh, as Janey
says."
"Do you mean Lady Thompson?"
She nodded.
"Aunt Thompson and her footman and her pug dog. Thank goodness, she
only stayed to tea, as she had a ten mile drive back to her hotel. As
it was, lots of things happened."
"What happened?"
"Well, first when she got out of the carriage, covered with jet anchor
chains--for you know Uncle Samuel died only three months ago and left
her all his money--she caught sight of our heads staring at her out of
the drawing-room window, and asked father if he kept a girls' school.
Then she made mother cry by remarking that she ought to be thankful to
Providence for having taken to its bosom the four of us who died young
--you know she has no children herself and so can't feel about them.
Also father was furious because she told him that at least half of us
should have been boys. He turned quite pink and said:
"'I have been taught, Lady Thompson, that these are matters which God
Almighty keeps in His own hands, and to Him I must refer you.'
"'Good gracious! don't get angry,' she answered. 'If you clergymen can
cross-examine your Maker, I am not in that position. Besides, they are
all very good-looking girls who may find husbands, if they ever see a
man. So things might have been worse.'
"Then she made remarks about the tea, for Uncle Samuel was a tea-
merchant; and lastly that wicked Janey sent the footman to take the
pug dog to walk past the butcher's shop where the fighting terrier
lives. You can guess the rest."
"Was the pug killed?" asked Anthony.
"No, though the poor thing came back in a bad way. I never knew before
that a pug's tail was so long when it is quite uncurled. But the
footman looked almost worse, for he got notice on the spot. You see he
went into the 'Red Dragon' and left the pug outside."
"And here endeth Aunt Maria and all her works," said Anthony, who
wanted to talk of other things.
"No, not quite."
He looked at her, for there was meaning in her voice.
"In fact," she went on, "so far as I'm concerned it ought to run,
'Here beginneth Aunt Maria.' You see, I have got to go and live with
her to-morrow."
Anthony stopped and looked at her.
"What the devil do you mean?" he asked.
"What I say. She took a fancy to me and she wants a companion--someone
to do her errands and read to her at night and look after the pug dog
and so forth. And she will pay me thirty pounds a year with my board
and dresses. And" (with gathering emphasis) "we cannot afford to
offend her who have half lived upon her alms and old clothes for so
many years. And, in short, Dad and my mother thought it best that I
should go, since Joyce can take my place, and at any rate it will be a
mouth less to feed at home. So I am going to-morrow morning by the
carrier's cart."
"Going?" gasped Anthony. "Where to?"
"To London first, then to Paris, then to Italy to winter at Rome, and
then goodness knows where. You see, my Aunt Maria has wanted to travel
all her life, but Uncle Samuel, who was born in Putney, feared the sea
and lived and died in Putney in the very house in which he was born.
Now Aunt Maria wants a change and means to have it."
Then Anthony broke out.
"Damn the old woman! Why can't she take her change in Italy or
wherever she wishes, and leave you alone?"
"Anthony!" said Barbara in a scandalised voice. "What do you mean,
Anthony, by using such dreadful language about my aunt?"
"What do I mean? Well" (this with the recklessness of despair), "if
you want to know, I mean that I can't bear your going away."
"If my parents," began Barbara steadily----
"What have your parents to do with it? I'm not your parents, I'm
your----"
Barbara looked at him in remonstrance.
"--old friend, played together in childhood, you know the kind of
thing. In short, I don't want you to go to Italy with Lady Thompson. I
want you to stop here."
"Why, Anthony? I thought you told me you were going to live in
chambers in London and read for the Bar."
"Well, London isn't Italy, and one doesn't eat dinners at Lincoln's
Inn all the year round, one comes home sometimes. And heaven knows
whom you'll meet in those places or what tricks that horrible old aunt
of yours will be playing with you. Oh! it's wicked! How can you desert
your poor father and mother in this way, to say nothing of your
sisters? I never thought you were so hard-hearted."
"Anthony," said Barbara in a gentle voice, "do you know what we have
got to live on? In good years it comes to about 150 pounds, but once,
when my father got into that lawsuit over the dog that was supposed to
kill the sheep, it went down to 70 pounds. That was the winter when
two of the little ones died for want of proper food--nothing else--and
I remember that the rest of us had to walk barefoot in the mud and
snow because there was no money to buy us boots, and only some of us
could go out at once because we had no cloaks to put on. Well, all
this may happen again. And so, Anthony, do you think that I should be
right to throw away thirty pounds a year and to make a quarrel with my
aunt, who is rich and kind-hearted although very over-bearing, and the
only friend we have? If my father died, Anthony, or even was taken
ill, and he is not very strong, what would become of us? Unless Aunt
Thompson chose to help we should all have to go to the workhouse, for
girls who have not been specially trained can earn nothing, except
perhaps as domestic servants, if they are strong enough. I don't want
to go away and read to Aunt Maria and take the pug dog out walking,
although it is true I should like to see Italy, but I must--can't you
understand--I must. So please reproach me no more, for it is hard to
bear--especially from you."
"Stop! For God's sake, stop!" said Anthony. "I am a brute to have
spoken like that, and I'm helpless; that's the worst of it. Oh! my
darling, don't you understand? Don't you understand----?"
"No," answered Barbara, shaking her head and beginning to cry.
"That I love you, that I have always loved you, and that I always
shall love you until--until--the moon ceases to shine?" and he pointed
to that orb which had appeared above the sea.
"They say that it is dead already, and no doubt will come to an end
like everything else," remarked Barbara, seeking to gain time.
Then for a while she sought nothing more, who found herself lost in
her lover's arms.
So there they plighted their troth, that was, they swore, more
enduring than the moon, for indeed they so believed.
"Nothing shall part us except death," he said.
"Why should death part us?" she answered, looking him bravely in the
eyes. "I mean to live beyond death, and while I live and wherever I
live death shall /not/ part us, if you'll be true to me."
"I'll not fail in that," he answered.
And so their souls melted into rapture and were lifted up beyond the
world. The song of the nightingales was heavenly music in their ears,
and the moon's silver rays upon the sea were the road by which their
linked souls travelled to the throne of Him who had lit their lamp of
love, and there made petition that through all life's accidents and
death's darkness it might burn eternally.
For the love of these two was deep and faithful, and already seemed to
them as though it were a thing they had lost awhile and found once
more; a very precious jewel that from the beginning had shone upon
their breasts; a guiding-star to light them to that end which is the
dawn of Endlessness.
Who will not smile at such thoughts as these?
The way of the man with the maid and the way of the maid with the man
and the moon to light them and the birds to sing the epithalamium of
their hearts and the great sea to murmur of eternity in their opened
ears. Nature at her sweet work beneath the gentle night--who is there
that will not say that it was nothing more?
Well, let their story answer.
